Start Your Spring Garden NOW! | The Garden Party Podcast Episode 201

Welcome to The Garden Party! A weekly podcasts about ALL THINGS GARDENING!

This week we talk about our 2024 Spring Garden Plans and getting a jumpstart on your seedlings!

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Hosted by @TexasGardenGuy
https://beacons.ai/texasgardenguy

Stephanie Vincent @RiverVGrowers
https://www.instagram.com/rivervgrowers/

Dirk Tanner @TannerFarmstead
https://www.instagram.com/tannerfarmstead/

Phil D’Angelis @Philsfigs
https://www.instagram.com/philsfigs/

Michael Fore @smithsgardentown
https://www.instagram.com/smithsgardentown/

Are we’re going to go live already let’s see one live video is starting can we also make requests for other songs no we’re just gonna I’m not taking any requests Michael hold not no officially live on Facebook all right all right guys welcome to the garden party my name is Destin Noak Texas

Garden guy and like I said before this is the garden party this is the garden party and we want a garden party with you we talk about the plants we grow and some things you might not know the garden party first episode of 202 all right Phil go and introduce yourself and

Start us off dude do you hear me Phil what um I I can’t see you guys but hey everyone it’s Phil from Phil’s figs the Fig daddy a great parent as well as the great plant parent but I’m back on the podcast and stoked to be here

Shout out to the Fig daddy welcome back Mr Mr Phil and we got Stephan we got Stephanie with River V Growers up top what’s up Stephanie with River V I have a retail Garden Center and I am a farmer protein and produce absolutely and where are you

Located Point Blank Texas did you make that up is that a real town it’s a real town we’re in Texas remember where that’s crazy I thought okay Lake Livingston if you still lost we’re 60 miles north of Houston how about that oh you’re not

Far from me then no I’m I’m I’m hour and a half from you oh I’m gonna have to make a trip now I thought the I thought the craziest named town in Texas was the place called Cut and Shoot and and that’s that that’s a

That’s a place you do not want to break down at no ever yes Gun Barrel there’s a Gun Barrel Texas there is oh geeez man who gave who gave people the the the ability to name their own talents U no idea okay we got another first timer on the garden party we got

Mr Dirk Tanner from Tanner Farmstead go introduce yourself man what’s up y’all my name is Dirk we’re on Tanner Farmstead we’re at small scale you know Market Garden we do some you know pasture raised chickens and whatnot and uh we have a little honor System farm

Store at our place so a lot of what we do is just focusing on educating people how to how to grow food you know what everybody else is doing which is why I’m happy to be here to learn from y all oh man we’re all learning I love your

Little your I guess your farm shed is that just like a a unit you buy by itself and you just filled it up and everything bought it preab they delivered it it’s easy peasy we actually never ran electrical to it uninsulated just have extension cords run from the

House heck yeah where you located we’re at greenb Arkansas just north of L Rock about 40 minutes okay oh nice nice nice is that close to fville we’re about two and a half hours from fville close to Little Rock I heard that yeah got you well and

We got a returning guest Mr Michael Fior Michael Michael Smith Fior from Smith Garden Town go go ahead and introduce yourself again yeah so I’m excited that there’s another retail Garden Center on with Stephany down there so or I don’t know orientation wise on the screen

Where you are you’re below me on my screen you may be above me everybody else’s screen oh don’t know um so right next to it so yeah I’m a fourth generation uh Garden Center person they used to call them Nursery man um back in the day but that became not profession

Politically correct anymore so now we are Nursery professionals I don’t know um what I am but we grow plants we sell plants um up in witto Falls Texas and uh yeah I’m excited to be here glad to be back glad you invited me back after previous shenanigans on other podcasts

Absolutely well you’ve been featured in like Nursery nurseryman magazine and St like that haven’t you yeah we had a the business has had a bunch of accolades over the years this year we had a few Awards and uh I was on a couple of magazine covers um for whatever reason

Uh but yeah got some big Awards this year young retailer of the Year things like that so I want a trip to Ohio nice there’s two places I don’t want to go Ohio and witch Falls I got to go to both of them no no I’ve spent a lot of time with

Tough halls and it’s it’s not that bad it’s not that it’s still Texas technically so uh the first line of defense against Oklahoma so we’re important up here are y’all closer to Oklahoma City than Dallas it’s about the same actually it’s two hours to Dallas two hours to Oklahoma City yeah I was

Looking at the map because I was trying to map it out if me and vickram me and vickram wanted to meet in the middle so vickram will be driving from lck he’s got like a four-hour drive and I’d have like a six-h hour drive we could meet up

There and come up there and see you so yeah do it that’ be fun well guys as gardeners you know people might not think that now is the time that you would be starting your Spring Garden you know but as gardeners we’re always looking ahead to next season and what’s

Coming up next um so I wanted to make this episode all about star your Spring Garden in January you know a lot of big nurseries and Growers like I don’t know Michael when did y’all start your Tomatoes we haven’t started them yet actually because we uh we cheat we don’t

Grow our tomatoes from seed for the most part we grow them from cuttings or from plugs um actually just because it fits in our production cycle better but um so yeah we’ll be getting those in I think our first batch comes in like in a couple weeks

Yeah and they’re so tomatoes are so fast that um we get them from those plugs we get them up and grow in a hurry yeah I I know it’s a really good idea to get a jump start like on Peppers especially like so this other Nursery down here they start their peppers

Around like Thanksgiving and they start their tomato seeds like the week of Christmas um and because someone was asking me in the live on Tuesday night they’re like how do I get my tomato plants to be so big and I was like well start early start them in

You know that’s the best advice I can give anybody for that um we do start our our super hot peppers the the insanely hot ones we start those in the fall because they are so slow to grow that in order to have them any size by Spring we

Got to start them in the fall is that the common consensus that the hotter the pepper seems like the slower it grows absolutely yeah the things like The Ghost and the Trinidad scorpion and the boot jolis and all of those they’re they’re just so slow to

Get up and produce Peppers yeah yep uh what what have y’all started already Stephanie I’m sure you’ve you’ve already got a bunch of stuff started me did you say sass sorry sorry we we start our Tomatoes um we started the first batch on the 15th of December

And then I just started some on the 22nd so I’ll probably start a couple 100 every week until really until the spring so I grow for my retail Garden Center and then I for our produce patch too so we’re trying to do like double the amount so we can have six packs nice

Yeah and so so do y’all y’all sell starts too and not just to y’all sell the starts as well yeah we sell all sorts of Veggie starts your heirlooms and then all a lot of standard varieties oh that’s awesome yeah yeah what about you Dirk are y’all y’all gonna try to do

Starts or y’all just gonna be selling tomatoes and stuff at the farm stand this year yeah we just don’t op we don’t have this the space and I just it’s not something that I’ve really wanted to mess with um trying to you know I know a

Lot of other Farmers already do it but I also see them compost a million plants every year for a seeds you know I think it works for some people it’s just it’s not something I really want to put the work towards I just yeah you know but um

But yeah some some for for people just starting out if you don’t have like you know you don’t necessarily need a bunch of like seed starting trays you know you can do tomatoes in like a Dixie cup or whatever you know like recycled cardboard carton for like a milk carton

Or whatever there’s a lot of cool options but like for some people it’s just easier to buy the starts like I was telling Stephanie the other day like for kale and broccoli and and cabbage I never have good luck starting those seeds and so it’s always just easier for

Me to just buy the starts you know but you’re paying so much more like you know I don’t I don’t know how much a headed cabbage costs like what2 or3 I I mean a plant is like $2 and you’re watering it all the time you know and so like it’s

It’s it’s whether or not you want to like grow your own cabbage or if you want to eat cabbage like I don’t know I it’s it’s one of those things that I I don’t know is if it’s worth it but I try it every year and Stephanie actually

Gave me a good tip on my uh broccoli this year she said to pop it up earlier right don’t leave it in the tray so long yeah yeah we try not we try not to let anything get root bound even putting it out a little bit earlier um except for

Tomatoes you know they don’t like their Roots really Disturbed I mean I’ve seen them where they don’t like it but everything else we try to go super super early yeah yeah oh I was gonna say we’re live on Facebook right now so if y’all are watching feel free to drop a comment

Down below with a question about gardening we got people from all over the US uh well like South Central what southeast mostly but I mean um we we have we have a lot of good uh advice for people because Phil you’re probably the most North so what is what zone are you

In I am am the am I the most North yeah I think so yeah I might be pushing with Arkansas but um I’m right on the coast so I’m on Zone 8B so we’ll see snow every three years maybe and then it melts by lunchtime but uh the whole town freaks

Out but uh I my my whole Greenhouse is full of fig cuting and then I have my own I’m trying to over winter a bunch of like as a home Gardener I’ve have decided to overwinter all 10 of my pepper plants because they were so awesome

And so I’m like what’s that do you sell your do you sell your cuting I do I do I have a big cutting sale going on right now do that you ship do you ship to people I ship I ship all over country Phils figs.com he’s got a

Bunch of uh you you ran out of The Godfather figs right I ran out of The Godfather fig I have a few in reserve so like my the really fancy ones like the C Dam Blanc C Dam moir um those are popping up now too uh those are the ones

That are like people are like do you ever make you know jams with them I’m like you don’t need to make jam with these fakes you just need to like wipe them on some crusty bread and you’re good to go and so those it’s already Jam

It’s already already Jam so I’m going to put out some of those those ones are a little more fickle but it’s worth the Vigor to try to root them but uh those are up and I did not say that but that made me so happy to hear that

I for it’s been so long since we had Michael on I forgot about the the the fruit and vegetable puns and the dad jokes and I welc them I welcome them so much thank you so much um just for record that was not slipped in there

That was that was Full Throttle that was gear five yeah Full Throttle man I’ll have to order some figs from you bro cuz I need to yeah check them out and I’m happy to answer any questions yeah I’ve got like a little swell i w to plant some trees fruit

Trees and different things on but anyways oh nice dude so I got you now is now is definitely the time of year you know Jorge having sales on like cold hearty trees and stuff like that uh your apples your peaches your pears you can still probably plant some of those and

If you’re in a warmer climate um someone was asking me whether it was better and and this probably be a good question for you Michael um is it better to go ahead and plant right now when it’s kind of getting cold we’re getting like maybe towards the peak in January February or

Would you rather wait would you rather us wait till like spring it’s actually better to go ahead and plant unless it’s something that is cold sensitive like a fig in Arkansas may be cold sensitive um but for everything that is appropriate for your Zone what we found is there’s a

Just like a curve like this of best time to plant and worst time to plant uh best time to plant it for most everything is fall winter is still good and then as we get into spring that decline is is dropping because we’re getting closer and closer to Summer which is the most

Stressful time for plants and then summer is that the worst time to plant uh most of your plants at least in Texas where it gets so hot and dry uh so your survivability rate is going to be highest in Fall next highest in Winter and then spring and then summer um so as

Long as it’s a cold hearty plant we’re still planting trees all winter long The Only Exception would be maybe is if if you see that that plant was in a nursery where it was protected and then you were going to take it straight back straight outside right in front of like

A bad cold snap or something um you want to make sure that you’re buying a plant that has been properly uh dormant and hardened off yeah you don’t want to mess up the acclamation because I guess we can get into some more fruit tree talk um because you would think you would

Think like you know the springtime is the best time to buy a fruit tree that’s wants to buy them yeah yeah yeah everybody’s waking up at a hibernation and wants to get a fruit tree and put it in the ground then they want to overwat it and kill it

Um but honestly the best time especially like at jese he’s got his apple trees and everything outside and he was actually saying all of his trees require less than 300 hours of chill chill time which is really good um and I I I’ve had some questions about chill time as well

I uh uh whether or not like chill time doesn’t necessarily mean freezing temperatures no it just means like I’ll let you explain Stephanie like the the oh that put you on the spot sorry no no that’s cool Michael want be better for it but no for for um chill hours it

Doesn’t necessarily have to be freezing and under to get to those 300 hours but I think that’s a Zone specific thing too you have to see um you know for whatever tree you’re going to buy make sure that the chill hours are what your Zone has

But 300 is really good for our area I know and you guys probably all know too that they changed the zone so we were 8B and now we’re nine um not thatc yeah well hello I’m so excited they say you can grow now you can magically grow yeah you can

Magically grow all these plants you previously couldn’t grow now all the time yeah just like the banana belt right you know just we in our first podcast we mentioned the B belt because there’s like a weird belt were you were you here for that Michael Zack or Noah was

Explaining if you Google it it’s called The Banana belt and there’s certain like places throughout the US where like these cities and these places have like little microclimates and they can grow bananas where they shouldn’t be able to grow bananas and it’s called the banana belt it’s very strange I’m actually

Wearing one right now oh my goodness bad joke but yeah I mean I I guess we can go around the horn and and talk about like some of our favorite tomato varieties uh like what your favorite spring vegetables are to plant and maybe give us a tip you know on on

What you like to plant so you’re you’re like a commercial Farm you know for the most part you’re you’re you’re farming so you probably have the to leg up on knowing a bunch of those good varieties so I’ll start off with you yeah who are you talking to

Stephanie go ahead I gotta Stephanie yeah um we stick to about two to three varieties per plant so over here where I am I choose celebrity Tomatoes that’s a really easy one to find in a retail setting so I always like to offer that one your sweetie 100 so your Reds cherry

Tomatoes and then um I always always recommend to try something new or fun so try those two tried and true plants and then try something fun like an heirloom like a Cherokee purple or um those funky green zebra cherries just like always try to find something fun to grow along

With those hearty ones so that your Garden’s fun absolutely yeah I I I always recommend people do that like find the varieties that you know you like out of everything you know and then throw in like a wild card every year because you everybody who grows gets

Those Baker Creek magazines and now they got they got some they got some weird hippie on social Med have y’all seen the baker oh my God I can’t I can’t tell if like that guy works there or like a homeless person stole like the the owner’s phone and he’s living there I

Don’t know but I I need to try to podcast hybri like he was there guess what come on in yeah that that account is very cool in C like blowing up it’s working you know it’s very eccentric and it’s working for them because they’re getting a ton of positivity and like

Good comments and shares so yeah yeah no yeah yeah they had some bad press so they need some good press I know they had some they they had bad press yeah you can you can Google it later I’m yeah it depends on who you ask but they had some

Negative reviews yeah um but yeah so to Phil I don’t know which order we are on Facebook but I’ll let Phil like what are you planting right now like what are you excited to plant for spring oh all my greens so like and I’m overwintering my

KES but I kind of succession plant those and then um because I’m going to get to the end of my first life cycle of the ones I’ve had for the past year and then I have more carrots I’m going to put in in the next few months because I’m

Waiting on these yellow Ock carrots to come in and those are cool that’s a cool experimental variety when we talk about like normals and favorites and I’m like the home Gardener and then I figs is my business but um and then Tomatoes again I’m probably going to do my cherries

Again and then my experimental last year were spoon Tomatoes which were like the tiniest little tiny things and I got millions of them and you just like sprinkle them in salads it was they’re kind of hard to get with a fork but uh I want to make more of like a tomato patch

And kind of do the San Marzano thing and try to make my own sauce this year so as as Italian as you are you got to have some sand Marzano you gotta get some of that you gotta get some of those dude you gotta get some uh it’s so funny

Cuz I saw a bunch of like people growing the spoon tomatoes because like like we’re were talking about earlier Baker Creek had like on the like on the Tomato section it’s like look at these little baby tomatoes and I have a hard enough time getting the little like sweet 100s

And stuff or or actually my favorite Cherry is the blueberry cherry tomato I really love those they actually almost have like a blueberry like kind of sweet flavor to them it feels like but even just finding those is such a pain those little tiny ones I’d have to like just

Cut off the whole branch and like you know just strip them off like that so well I get to the point you go out there you just shake it and you just pick them all up because there’s just so many of them they’re so little they like almost

Fall through the colander holes anyway I I might need to get some of those and play them just as like sacrifices to the Mocking Bird Gods you know like maybe they’ll just leave it leave all my other ones alone you know I don’t know I I’m sure if you you grow tomatoes everybody

Hates mocking BDS um but yeah did you say you’re over wintering your kale outside right yeah I mean we’re getting down to 27 tonight and I’m debating throwing the cloth over top cuz I have like some lettuces and stuff but uh the kale has just pushed right through every freeze and actually got

Sweeter that’s what I was gonna ask since we got some college educated people here on Plants stuff uh is it is is it true how it works the the negative or the below 32 turns the starches into sugar is that how it works is that what it is I know like

Analization um I don’t know the process scientifically of how it works maybe you guys could explain more detail uh I know they just they do grow slower for me I don’t get the same growth rate but I can still Harvest throughout the winter which has been fun yeah Michael can usually smarty

Pants it up when it comes to stuff like this yeah not that one my banana belt is sagging too low oh my God stop talking about your Sag My smarty fans sagged for a moment next week we’ll have chat GPT on as a guest who will

Yeah my God someone someone let us know real quick yeah I get it comment someone someone will comment something said I got the chocolate pepper seeds I’m interested in finding out what those will taste like has anyone ever grown the chocolate Peppers chocolate no but there’s like a

Candy cane that we grew last year and it’s got like a chocolate stripe I don’t know that might be you know cuz there’s so many names right one company names them something and then somebody else calls them something different but I have grown the candy cane pepper and it

Has like a chocolate stripe it’s a snacking red and green pepper and they’re delicious and they’re really fun to grow yeah my buddy had told me about like a um they had a uh it was like called a count chocola it was a pepper and it was like a chocy tasting like a

Pepper and they mixed it like they cross pollinated with like a a ghost pepper and so they called it like a count chalk like it was it was weird it was crazy but it was super hot and I don’t hot peppers at all I can’t do it at all

Whatsoever I wonder like that would taste really good if you’re like making like um like a mole like a Mexican mole type sauce that would be awesome with that but again I’ve never tried that type of pepper yeah I don’t know I don’t mess with the hot stuff either Mr M Mr Dirk

What are you growing this spring well one thing I love the hot stuff like if I’m not sweating and feeling a little punished then I’m it’s not hot I knew it I just looked at you and I was like guy likes hot peppers y I love it man yeah

We uh I mean I don’t really experiment with to because I mean really everything that we grow for the most part we’re trying to sell or we do sell so to be honest most of the time we just stick with like the sun gold cherry tomato super sweet 100 we’re going to

Experiment with a you know kind of more of a slicer tomato this year along with doing the cherries but that’s the extent of our our uh and we grow all those in in the greenhouse which TR roll our summer crops in the greenhouse um they just tend to do better

Undercover Just Produce better for us so um I don’t know if I have any major tips so I’m definitely not the pro when it comes to tomatoes I just to be honest most of the time I neglect tomatoes because I get tired of pruning you know

R and R of them yeah well this year I actually was tell I was telling about you on the other podcast that uh I’m I’m going to like kind of not plant as many tomatoes this year since it’s just for me last year I probably did 50 tomatoes

In my backyard alone and then once they start getting like crazy it’s so hard to keep up with pruning them and so I was like I’m going to do like maybe less than half that this year and focus on growing them like the right we you know

Trying to grow the be instead of growing the most Tomatoes can I grow the best tomatoes this year and you know really take care of because because I grow on mining containers since I’m in a backyard subdivision uh the containers get too close together start weaving in

Out of each other and just comes a nightmare and then I had the worst Leaf footed bug infestation this past year it was Unreal you know and so I just I think it was an airf flow problem it was a congestion problem so I’m going to focus on growing the best tomatoes this

Year rather than a million so Michael I I know a lot of people that run green houses and our Farmers don’t Garden but you actually Garden right I do do um not as much at the house I’m living in now at my old house I was really into the home gardening but now

My kids are pushing me back into it they’re they’re really uh getting on board with it so I do currently a bunch of uh like containers on my deck I’ve got a big deck in my backyard and then I’m gonna be putting in some raised beds um I’m gonna be putting in some

Raised beds because the kids are like we want strawberries and we want tomatoes and we want this this and cucumbers my kids love cucumbers um so yeah they’re they’re ready to get back into it and they’re getting to the age where they can actually be more responsible you

Know they’re going to be the ones that go out on water and uh fight off the squirrels uh from eating all the plants and all of that um so yeah I’m I’m looking forward to that chapter with them because previously when I was gardening they were quite a lot smaller

So it was mostly just me doing everything and um now that I’ve got three kids and it’s just it’s just a great way to be involved with them and get them to eat stuff that they normally wouldn’t eat you know kale um my kids would go out there and just grab it and

Eat it right off the plant because it’s so much different than having it put on their plate for them and they’re like I don’t want that but when they go Harvest it for whatever reason they want to eat it um a lot or they’re a lot more likely

To eat it rather than you know being presented to them on their plate so I’m excited about that doing more of that with them and then of course at the nursery we grow just tons and tons of stuff but yeah um so it’s fun I I will second what Stephanie said about

Celebrity tomatoes that is my favorite variety they produce like crazy um for us up here in the early spring they produce big big fruits and then as the warm weather kicks on the size uh you know shrinks down quite a lot but they still produce a bunch of fruits but I’ve

Had celebrities go over a pound for me when they are early in the season um and then they kind of get back down to more tennis ball size uh slicers you know as it gets warmer but love that variety and we can usually Harvest them all the way

Up into like July before the heat starts messing with them a little bit more um up here where we are at least yeah absolutely there is the celebrity similar to the Early Girl because the early girl is the one I do the most of and and I get a huge crop out of

Those they look better yeah I’m might have to give it a try I I usually do the the early girls um I think I have done some celebrity it’s kind of hard to tell the difference between them uh the Rutgers has been a really good one for me uh if y’all know

About Rutgers Rutgers is actually a I guess a variety of tomato plant that actually the University of ruers uh established for the Campbell Soup company uh and that’s like what they use in their their tomato soup um and then uh I also like to use like they make a

One called uh it’s called a jubilee it’s like more like a big orange one and that one does really well down here um so yeah I’m gonna do probably less tomato plants but probably expand my variety I y’all see the one in Baker Creek had one

Last year was called like the pink Fang it was like Aroma but it was like a little pink Roma hear but my favorite roma tomato this is something everyone should go grow but don’t sell the seeds out like if a lot of people watch this don’t sell

The seeds out it’s stri you know to wor about that strip Roma the striped Roma uh it’s such a good paste tomato and sauce tomato and then like you can just eat it the acidity is so good Phil I can hear you I can hear you typing when you’re typing Phil you have

To yourself when you type am I really oh I was like stripe Roma that’s I had to this is actually Phil’s personal just research station yeah it’s just here just to get ideas from us dude it is always so funny like when I do these podcasts we’ll talk

About something like with Zach like as as soon as the podcast is over he does the video on exactly what what I was talking about like right after that it’s so funny like it it it happens every single time and it’s hilarious I give people better ideas than I get for I get

For myself like it’s a great brainstorming session it is I mean that’s how like my Phil’s fig Friday started and then I was like that’s a great name let’s run with that and I was like and now it’s like three episodes in but yeah dude are you editing on cap cut

Or what are you editing on yeah that’s cap cut yeah do everybody use cap cut everybody uses cap cut for the most part you don’t DK I use inshot and I all on my phone just yeah no I simp yeah what do you use to edit your video Stephanie

Videos like for what I don’t edit my videos what am I editing oh oh so you’re you don’t edit your real reals you just do whatever whenever I do the reals in the app I just use Instagram oh okay what I’ve heard since we’re talking in brainstorming is that if you create in

The app you’re more likely to see like a growth and have more view things like that yeah I don’t know okay so maybe I should edit I don’t know it might work I don’t know whatever you’re doing is working so no changes I uh I yeah I I swallowed a

Bunch of tomato seeds the other night and it didn’t do anything for me I say not dude I so before I did that video I want everybody to know do not just put in any seeds in your mouth because some are toxic and will kill you like Pride

Barbados are really toxic um oh don’t do that I actually reached out to vickram before that and I was like hey is there any risk of me like opening a seed packet dumping a bunch of tomato seeds in my mouth I like is it do they put

Anything in there with the seeds like as like a like not not anti-coagulant but like a powder or anything he’s like no you’re fine and I was like you sure and he’s like I don’t know and I was I’ll try in know I don’t know hey I I did it for the

Brand I Did It For the Brand you know is what it is what kind of tomato seeds did you swallow oh they were called uh I got them from San Diego Seed Company um they sent them to me but they were called like flame something flame I’ll send you

A picture afterwards okay because this is really really wild but H have you guys ever heard or seen where a cherry tomato it your body actually doesn’t digest this is gross doesn’t digest the cherry tomato seed completely and so like if you buy bio compost or you go to

A composting facility that uses human waste there’s like thousands of cherry tomatoes I know think about I 100 you seen that well I see it in my house because every time I have every time I have cherry tomatoes in that in that pot you have cherry tomatoes forever you’re never

Getting rid especially sweet 100s sweet 100s you can never get rid of them are you using your making your own fertilizer I’m trying to figure out how to word this yeah yeah yeah the Martian and he’s like oh I got this he’s like to growing vegetables no actually we tried some bio

Compost a few years ago and like we let it sit for six months like we do all of our composts and there was literally cherry tomatoes so I just went to go go Google said have you seen the videos of people going to the wastewater treatment

Plant and going out to the fields where they dry the human sludge and there’s tomatoes growing and they go and eat them I’ve been there dude yeah plants I haven’t seen Tomatoes but yeah I I I mostly see like Q-tips and like rubber gloves and stuff like that you know

That’s mostly what because with my my day job we do like the electrical contract for like the city of Houston and stuff and so we actually have to go to the wastewater treatment plant and it is so nasty and you see a lot of stuff like animals and all kinds of

Like tomato go ahead and eat one I’m not doing it I’m not doing it it make I’m sure visiting that’ll make you quit drinking tap water too but that’s a conversation dude dude I don’t has anyone read the human handbook has anyone read that book I know what you’re

Talking about I know got read it it’s it’s pretty cool I mean I know it people when you start talking about you know composting human waste but it I mean it just expands your your I guess your your thought process and your mindset towards things but it’s it’s a

Fantastic book it’s called the human or handbook and it’s all about composting human I mean human waste yeah and uh there’s a good amount of people doing it and like as long as you let it sit I mean they don’t put it on their annual Gardens but they put it on fruit trees

And all that I mean if you do it the right way there’s no stench it’s clean it’s help a lot of countries that don’t have wastewater treatment systems in place yeah I’m here go go ah oh I was just goingon to say like P raising pastured animals and regenerative Farms

That’s like a whole movement Too part of it because you can make your own compost and like what we tried it for was for our pasture for our animal we had it shipped in and it was it worked really really good I’m just a fan of mushroom compost

Man well I will tell you right now if you buy a bag of of soil from Walmart uho pretty much anywhere uh probably what what would you say Michael but 80% of soil companies you bio solids I don’t know the figure but it’s in a lot it’s in a lot of areas that

People don’t realize our city uh has wi Falls has a organic compost you know recycling program where you can put your yard waist out on the curb they pick it up and turn it into compost but they blend in uh you know biomaterial from the wastewater treatment plant into that as well and

Nobody here really knows that and so they give that compost away and everybody’s like yeah compost for my garden and I’m pretty sure that a lot of them would be freaked out if they knew that it’s got I yeah I uh I guess we’re kind of bust we’re kind of letting the

Scout out the bag yeah if you go like if you go to Home Depot or Lowe’s and you look at the back of the bag and it doesn’t say bio solid free it’s got biosolids in it that’s pretty much a given like it’s a a huge it’s it’s not

Necessarily a bad thing like I I know some people po not to be too corny but some people poo poo on it uh but it’s I mean my main issue with it is is the pharmaceutical side of it um if you think about all of the drugs that people

Take and they don’t all get processed by our body a lot of that goes out of our body and some of those um are very difficult a break down even through the composting process so right that’s my main issue with it um not to say that I

Don’t use it um but it’s like it’s always kind of in the back of my mind is like how much of that is in there um and it’s becoming Mercury too right Mercury can be an issue as yeah yeah some someone was telling me like that is it

Called not trace minerals but like hard heavy elements whatever heavy metals can be present in some of that stuff that has uh you know biosolids but hey you know you’re taking a risk I mean I I got I got poo pooed on because I was putting

A cardboard in my com like you shredded cardboard in my compost or like my junk mail I shred it I I get all the plastic out shred it throw it in my worm bin they eat it I put I fill the bottom of my rais bed I got so many comments what

About all the Arsenic and all the stuff and I was like dude go do a soil sample test of the soil in your front yard arsenic exists in like everything like like it’s it’s already there man like it I don’t know people just take some chances sometimes you know it’s it can’t

Be worse and more buying the stores yeah so Debbie and then you use bio compost you’re good you’re good it was yeah yeah yeah I’m I’m uh I’m okay with the with the composting your own poop where I draw the line is the the the grounding I

Don’t I don’t know if y’all know about the grounding stuff like take your shoes off and ground like to the Earth well it’s a little like I’ve heard some people they uh like literally will drive a grounding rod outside their bedroom window and run a strap like to their bed

Frame and then like put a velcro strap on their like a strap on their hand which’s I think you could probably get electrocuted like that like if the lightning rod would hit by I don’t know but either way that’s where I some of the hippie stuff kind of throws I don’t

Know I can get into some hippie stuff but that where that’s where I dra the line I’m not I think if it if it if that does not exist in Google Scholar then maybe it can’t be cited as a scientifically proven thing it’s there just like just like electric

Culture yeah what are y thoughts on that I’d love to hear I think it’s the biggest I think it’s the biggest well was a k we’d all hold hands at the horse electric fence and then someone would have to to be the first person to touch

It and that is that the same no I I love electric culture so so much I love talking we talked about it for like an hour and a half on one podcast and did there’s still people out there that just they’re going to be I don’t know Stephanie have you had people comment

About electric culture in your past in your fields or anything like that no again I can get down with some hippie stuff but it’s I don’t think it’s needed I don’t think there’s enough benefits to as much work it is to get it done that

You’re going to read do you know what I mean amen yeah yeah no if electric culture worked then Michael’s whole Nursery would have electric rods all around on every fence post um it’s a scam I mean we’ buy it all up yeah yeah yeah it’s a

Scam yeah I I wish it worked I mean that would be cool if it worked it worked but it’s on Google on Google uh education or whatever bickram said it’s it’s on there you know that whatever but there’s another way way to um Google search uh

That is really helpful I use it all the time and that’s when you’re wanting to filter out results so whatever you’re Googling whatever topic after that type in site and then make a CO in and then edu and that will make it where all of your results will only come back from

Doedu websites and so if you because if you were to just Google electroculture all the top you know 500 results are going to be blogs people talking about it but it’s not actually going to be University Research so when you type in electric culture site colon edu you will

Get University Research if there is any on that subject so that’s what I use all the time if I’m if I’m researching a new plant disease or something that’s coming up or a new bug or you know a viral problem that we’re having with Greenhouse I don’t want to hear like

Joo’s like opinion on this from their their Reddit article yeah or the Reddit article or whatever ever because those are always the top results and so I use that filter with Google all the time to cut through and try to find where there’s going to actually be you know

University articles about it yeah I appreciate that also like it’s like Google Scholar where you can go on and make sure that it’s been like a sci published article and then um the only thing is sometimes you’re only allowed to have like see the abstract of it you

May not have access to all of that but a lot of times you can at least sometimes the abstract will give you enough like support to run with it a a little bit does everyone here grow from more of an organic perspective I don’t want to just

Assume or or any of yall grow like more conventionally I would I would say I’m I’m as organic as I possibly could be I when people always when people ask me about like organic growing I said yeah I’m as organic as I possibly can be I I

Don’t have the time or the ability to stand out in my garden with the stick and kill bugs all day long so I’m going to use neem oil or oh yeah yeah yeah I’m asking like more of like you know conventional pesticides Seven Dust um you know which I’m just curious because

I had some questions around it but I wanted to ask first yeah so in our conventional go ahead no you go ahead I was gonna say we used conventional when we started in 2015 so like we run commercial cattle and things like that and so our hay fields and

Things like that we use a lot of conventional chemicals or beside applications all of that um but as we’ve like you said like I’ve told y we dabbled with the bio combos we’re trying to get more towards that but same with Destin it’s like if if I have bugs out

There and it’s going to eat the crop that is going to pay my bills for my family I’m gonna kill the bugs however I have to yeah I’m the same way I’ll I’ll blast like we we use as Gard panic and the in the market Gardens which I mean they’re

Too organically certified but I mean they they’ll still knock I mean you you spray those bugs they’re going to die from that stuff you know and and it’s like I’m if I’m if again like said if my crops getting destroyed I’m not going to watch thousands of dollars you know just

Get obliterated now I’m not Al I’m not going to go and sell it tell people it’s organic if I use you know Seven Dust for example but yeah you know I’m totally with you you you can’t let everything die yeah I I think

I think a lot of it has to do with the termin ology of the word organic as well because saying organic could mean one thing to one person and one thing to the other and so like what is organic you know like you know oh I only use neem

Oil oh you know I don’t use I don’t use NE oil oh I only use ladybugs you know like and then when you and when you post a video you bought ladybugs you get a bunch of people coming after you you know so like it’s it’s uh you know it’s

A it’s a battle either way but I try to be as open as possible about what I use in the garden I had a uh I had a cucumber Beetle infestation about a year ago and I could not control it with panic pyrine anything and I used the

Hell out of some Seven Dust but I read the but I but I read the instructions I did all the precautions and I I didn’t die so we’re good and guess what I I I didn’t kill all my bees either I didn’t you know it didn’t have an adverse

Reaction to anything so it just killed a bunch of cucumber beetles Michael like so your Nursery I I looked up to y’all so I’m so happy that you’re on the podcast but like in that setting you know about is yeah yeah they know me you are the man of the year

Um uh like my question for you like in those settings where you do have the green houses and things like that you probably have to really stay on top of your stuff um and do you get questions from your consumers like are they worried about that yeah we do um and so

We we get that a lot and that’s something we kind of have to be careful with because we use we use organic methods and conventional methods because we grow a huge variety of stuff from vegetables and ornamentals and all kinds of stuff but um we try our best or

Actually we do uh I wouldn’t on our vegetables that we grow I Don’t Spray anything onto them that I wouldn’t personally spray in my own garden feed to my kids um so we don’t use any uh synthetic pesticides on our uh vegetables that we grow but we do use

Synthetic pesticides on our ornamentals and so we have to be careful about you know making sure that we grow in separate areas and how we spray and what we spray so that way we’re not cross-contaminating from one crop to another and then we we kind of do the

Same thing we’re not certified organic and the vegetables that we sell and we’ll have people that will ask us you know are these organic tomatoes are these organic pepper plants and we can’t say yes they’re organic because we’re not certified and you know the products

That we use we we just tell them what we use is our natural products but there’s these are not certified organic because we haven’t gone through the processes of being certified um you know and our soil that we use is not a certified organic soil but it’s all organic material that

Goes into the soil there’s nothing synthetic in the soil that we grow in so it’s just like you know we we have to try to find that balance but we we certainly are getting more and more inquiries about that every year and it’s something that we kind of have to um you

Know be aware of especially on our ornamental side of things now too because um the whole deal with neonicotinoids systemic insecticides has really blown up and people are you can’t use a big word like that and not elaborate explain you can’t you can’t be using nicotinoids

I quit nicotine so I’m G need to hear about this neonic neonicotinoids are systemic insecticides and so they actually they’re insecticides that will get into the vascular system of plants and they will travel you know you can put them on the roots as a root drench and then they

Will travel all the way up through the all the tissue of the plant and then if the bugs feed on the plant uh then it will kill them and so they are one of the that yeah I mean it’s amazing it’s amazing stuff because uh it’s one of the most biggest

Technological advances that we’ve had in insecticides over the last uh you know 50 years but uh but they have a bad wrap because they persist in the tissue of the plants if you treat your plants with neonicotinoids or systemic insecticides and then you sell those plants say you’re selling a milkweed or something

To someone and then they take it home the monarchs come in and lay their eggs on there and then the caterpillars come out and eat that plant and then the caterpillars die because those systemic insecticides are still in there so we’re having a lot of customers that will

Actually ask hey this milked has it been sprayed with insecticide and we have to be honest with them and tell them yes or no um and we have to be careful because we will spray some of our plants with it but we really have to watch on our

Pollinator friendly plants to not those with the systemics um as much now a lot of the bad publicity they get uh I think is way overblown um because uh in some regards uh neonicotinoids can be safer for pollinators uh as opposed to other other types of pesticides because like I said

You can apply them as a root drench so that way you’re not actually uh volatized the chemical and putting it in the air and so you can Target your treatments just can Target your treatment a lot better so you can take something that is you know more organic

You know like a like a clove oil or a sesame oil or one of these that are uh more organically certified but if you’re volatized that and putting it in the air um and that lands on bees uh then that can actually be more dangerous to them than say a systemic insecticide that’s

Applied to the roots of a plant that bees are not actively foraging on that’s wild is there a brand like like a nicotinoid like a brand that I can Google like that you know of or the most common one is a medoid um just write that down and then

Dino teen is is the other one so this this is why products like seven Ducks sell so much easier because everybody can spell You Know M that sounds like cough medicine so metaloid is the active ingredient but it’s in a ton of name brand uh systemic insecticides so if you were just to

Google systemic insect control there’s going to be a ton of name brands you know Bayer and all these other places that have theirs but you’ll look at the label and most likely what it’s going to be as a metaloid um but the other one that’s a

Little bit newer is dine which is in uh things like Safari um insect control and they that’s that’s kind of the newer stuff and there’s there’s other ones out there too but systemic insecticides like we wouldn’t be able to grow poinsettas without systemic insecticides they are so prone to White flies especially um

That you know back 30 years ago we were considering completely dropping poinsettas alog together because it’s so hard to keep bugs off of them um with conventional spraying and then systemics came along and voila we can grow beautiful poinsettas now and they’re not something that goes outside that’s going

To be harmful to bees or anything like that so you know we use them there wow well that’s why we grow figs Phil because you don’t really have to do anything to figs I mean figs dude root them they they get fruit in the first year and you’re like holy cow that’s

Amazing I’m going to do that 70 more times and then I have an orcher now but you root them you fruit them and then you kaboot them you know you send them out you know man it’s just yeah no I I I uh have you had any experience so talking

About figs now um have you heard of the Fig the Fig Bor have you you have any experience with the Fig boore it’s like a no the only pest I have is like the spotted Wing drosophilia that will put its larae like you know like raspberries

They’ll do that with the Fig and they can sour it and everything from really quickly um and it’s only wherever it exists and if it’s really humid out it tends to I’ll go I’ve seen it once at night night out there and I was like No

And I chase try to like SWAT them off all the figs but uh that’s the only pest outside of like um I haven’t heard of the Fig bore at all I’ve heard of the Ambrosia beetle is that what you’re referring to I think it’s me it could be

I’m kind of dumb but um uh it’s it’s a little Beetle and it like gnaws into the bark of the fig tree and it like specifically targets figs and it lays this larvae and then it just rots it out you know the tree rots out it’s like the the the

It’s not the it’s not the Bugs themselves that rot the tree it’s they also inoculate it with some sort of bacteria that also kills the tree and it’s like such a it’s like seeing the blue screen on your computer it’s such a death sign when you see these little

Four remnants sticking out of the trunk of your tree and you’re like this can’t be happening and you just have to like i’ I had it to one of my 10-ft trees that I had to Lop to the ground and just like essentially burn it um but you know

Figs are resilient if you have an established root system that same fig tree grew 8 feet the next year so wow yeah that’s crazy and then it’s and and unfortunately when you do that sort of we it’s called like regenerative pruning and when you heavy heavily prune a fig

Tree and it’ll grow have tons of growth but it won’t focus on um fruit and fruiting and so fortunately I got some fruit this year because we have a longer fig season you guys all do too down in Texas where I had fruit in the November

But that fig normally fruits for me in August but it had spent so much time growing so the shorter season people have to forego a whole season of uh growing figs because of it I’m about to hurt your feelings figs uh Phil I go I P I picked a fig today I’m

Still picking figs in my backyard I don’t even want to hear that no how much still got fig in my backyard dude I have few they’re not fruity but there like have so many experimental things going to my greenhouse because I’m a gardener and I can’t help myself

So um but I have one with a little baby fig on it but it’s not going to give me that fig this year or next for all the for all the figs out there little baby figs are called figlets little baby figlets easy to remember little baby

Figlets uh speaking of like root stock so we were I was at work today and we’re like driving down this back road the back of the plant and my buddy was riding when he’s an old man and he’s got bad eyesight so whenever he says he sees

Something on the side of the road he’s definitely not there um so we were driving he goes what the heck no I was driving and he was ring with me and he was like man what is that yellow thing hanging off the tree I looked and it

Like I saw like the Tallow trees are like all the leaves are turning to yellow and I was like it’s the Tallow trees and he was like no it’s a fruit and so I backed up and I looked and I saw it was a it was a lemon and it was a

Uh a a a trifoliate yeah and I was yeah yeah it’s so oh everybody if you have a citrus tree at your house and it DED back in the freeze if it dried back if it died back in the freeze the top dyed in the root stock is the trifolia is

That’s what’s growing wild and I I had to do some research on the trifolia and that was pretty neat to know that like they’re a cold hearty variety of citrus they can grow you up to like six zone six um and then the fruit is inedible

From what I hear yeah it’s so gross we have them growing we’re I’m in East Texas so just like 60 Mi North Northeast of you and they’re all we lost Tanner oh where did he go I don’t know this is boring see you later no um but they grow native but whenever

Phil you said that you you knock that tree over whatever you mowed it back and it’s reg regenerative and it comes back I find that so fascinating about almost all fruit trees and citrus trees if you do that to them they come back with a vengeance I know like we have a

Blueberry farm and and it is a part of regenerative EG if you mow them all the way back you’re going to have an amazing blueberry crop in another three to five years like fruit trees are so fascinating in fact like do you bring up a good point like it helps the

Resiliency in a lot of ways there’s like um fig mosaic virus that can show itself in a lot of fig varieties if you get into fig trading on the internet and growing figs it’s inevitable they got exposed and it kind of just lives with them

But if you often see like a fig mosaic virus Branch showing and you Lop the whole thing down it actually will get stronger over time and come back more resilient against it years to come so yeah it’s cool I didn’t know you could do that with blueberries though yeah you

Can just you could take blueberries all the way back down to the ground and they will come back I might do that I mean this little babies these are like commercial Rosa blueberries so maybe let’s check the varieties these are southern high bushes and Rabbid eyes but um yeah hey do you

Grow Michael do you grow fruit trees at the nursery or do you bring them in we bring him in cool yeah yeah would probably be way too difficult like that um yeah we pretty much don’t grow any Woodies is what we call them in our in our business uh we grow annuals

Perennials vegetables um and then we don’t grow any of the shrubs or trees and actually we grow a few shrubs um and then we don’t grow our foliage our tropical plants we buy those in as well yeah yeah if y’all are looking for some uh fruit trees as well uh my buddy at

Leg Creek Farms over in East Texas he’s sending me some blueberries and we’re going to do a giveaway uh to we’re going to give away a blueberry plant to somebody on Facebook and a blueberry plant to some on Instagram check leg Creek Farm out he’s a actually got a

Really cool book that he get sent me the southern Orchard month by month this is a really cool book uh basically if you’re in like the Southeast Texas tells you how to grow this is obviously backwards but it’s a it’s a neat little book you can get it on Amazon it’s the

Southern Orchard month by month not a paid ad so yeah that’s cool no uh Hey Tanner’s back Boo where’d you go man it it booted me off you’re drinking too much of that mason jar water I guess so man it completely kicked me out of here

Oh my goodness no it’s all right it’s that it’s that Arkansas internet I’m always surprised like my buddy’s in Alabama and you don’t think of like Alabama like having good internet I don’t know why uh but like he said during the pandemic he said like during

The pandemic they ran fiber like to his house and he lives like out in this Cog Hill he so they ran F fiber all the way to his house and I was like I can’t even get fiber in my house and I’m like in Houston This is BS this is stupid you

Know I would love fiber I love you know there’s nothing worse than trying to upload a 30 minute YouTube video on your cell phone with terrible Wi-Fi you know yeah no for sure thanes forever we were talking we were talking about editing and St like that so so

Stephanie you were saying you do all your editing for like Instagram and everything like that on the app and yall you said you’ve gotten you think you get better results doing it like that yeah I mean back in was it November I think I did a 30-day re challenge just for

Myself I challenged myself and uh posted one every single day and made sure that I edit it in the app and I mean we all know with social media followers don’t actually mean dollar signs but it did increase my follower count um significantly within 30 days so I think

It works but also I admire you guys that have the time and the skill and knowledge to sit down and edit I would not even know what to do with something like that my only hack with ever figuring it out was that um I used to be in like

Skateboarding middle midle school we like film each other doing tricks and stuff and I was like oh I got to do like a cool edit and so I was like all that that little part of my brain that I thought was like why did I ever do that

Just but because it was fun came back into like content creation that’s the only thing that like helps me expedite it yeah well and it’s it’s much more time consuming to edit a video into like a 60 second clip than it is to do like a

10 15 minute video like it is it is it takes me no time to edit a YouTube video like it’s nothing the the upload time takes a while but like it’ll take me probably twice as long to do a Tik Tok or a reel or anything like that um

Because just because you’re trying to condense all that information into 60 seconds it’s so wild you know and then you got people who say oh uh don’t make a Tik Tok or an Instagram that’s longer than 15 to 30 seconds you know like the real I I’ve done some gorilla videos

Like for Instagram and St like that and they’ve done really well so I’m wondering if there’s something something to that you know the attention span yeah people are looking for something to catch their eye and scroll on I guess but I think it’s all about creating what

You like to create too and what your ideal customer likes so if you like it then whatever yeah yeah or we could just team up and create a five minute crafts Channel and start making the best five minute craft videos we could possibly make that would probably be a thing so

You guys use cap cut for YouTube and things like that I’ve got the pro version I got I I spend like 20 bucks a month and I can I can use it on my phone and I can use it on my desktop and uh you can edit it whichever format you

Want it’s it’s really neat it’s it’s probably close it’s probably similar to yours like what you use dirt it’s it’s probably very similar I’m sure I mean it’s I try to keep it simple man but I think I think it’s people over complicated the video editing it’s like

Man just press record and edit and get it posted like quit over thinking it you know I agree great point it’s a great reminder sometimes when you’re like oh what if I cut this just right you’re like n just send it out but I will say cap cut is very the userfriendly design

Where I’m able to like just like cut and clip with my thumb along all their points it’s it the the sensitivity is good yeah if you ever use like apple movie or anything like that is is Felicia editing yours videos Michael or do you do those she edits all of them

I I used to and I I’m not lucky I pay I pay her get it he gets it right every time on the first try yeah so I was editing my own videos and I was like this is my least favorite thing in the world so I know how to do

It but uh I was like this feels like a a big uh not a great use of my time and so I was like I’m gonna hire someone and then she turned out to be awesome uh so we keep her around now and now she like she drives everything on the channel and

I just I just sit in front of the camera and you know come up with ideas but one thing that really helped us with speeding up the editing is we break everything up into short clips so when I’m making h i do longer videos that’s

Just my style most of my videos are like one to three minutes that’s kind of where I live um and that length and um so we but I I get my thoughts together I record about 10 seconds and then we stop and then I reather my thoughts and I record

Another 10 seconds and I stop and then that just helps to make the video flow a lot better because you can tell when I’m talking I have all these dead spaces when I’m talking and I go uh uh and I forget what I’m trying to say um and so

Whenever you actually just break it up into multiple little clips and then all of a sudden you just throw it into the editor and string it all together and kind of cut out the lag time in between each clip it makes the editing go faster

And it makes I think that’s led to a lot of our success on Tik Tok and the other platforms is it makes me sound smarter because there’s not all the dead air in my video it’s just like boom boom boom boom boom Going Through the different

Points that I need to make because she edits out all the dead space well you’re you’re good on camera though I mean it’s not just the editing you’re good on camera and you’re very knowledgeable you know so it’s that that helps you know yeah Felicia does do a good job shout

Out to Felicia at the vital root she is awesome Fela the go s my last Godfather cut in she did oh good um B bang okay so before we I don’t know when you’re gonna wrap it up but no go ahead I do want to make a a plea for

You to grow onions do you guys grow onions that’s one of my favorite things to grow and it’s almost time to do so okay on I don’t eat onions you don’t eat onions oh well you should joking no I don’t I don’t eat onions onions how it’s

A texture thing for me do you eat do you eat any recipes I mean what do you eat so I don’t I don’t so I don’t mind the flavor of onions like the like onion powder and recipes or whatever I don’t like the texture of like the onion

That’s I’m a texture guy you can cook them and the texture goes away yeah I don’t know it’s it tast I’m biting into a fingernail like it even if it’s like finely minced up into a recipe that you can’t even tell they’re in there if it’s

Like finely minced and cooked down I can handle it like if if I bite if I bite into something it’s got like a cooked onion in it I’m fine but like if someone tells me bite into this onion like it’s an apple who does that get the hell out

Of here I’m not doing it people do it man Stephanie’s looking at me like she does it I I just like this what’s the guy you have on the podcast seed Farm T where he’s out in California like onions candy yeah same thing love it yeah he’s

The most handsome man on Instagram I know stop stop BR stop he’s already got a very big head I know he’s the best looking dude on Tik Tok it’s it his what it is I didn’t say that I said that way he bites an onion me too I’m I’m I’m

Deflecting because he’s very handsome I’m onions actually in Texas like um y’all do y’all have do you sell onion sets at your garden center we do yeah we for where we are I always tell people to PL them in late January we’re up in zone seven now zone eight but I’m still gonna

Call it Zone Seven uh so uh the Farmers plant their seeds in the fall and then they get the sets ready to plant or to give to us uh in January and I think late January is just the perfect time late January early February for us to

Get those in the ground and they’re so easy to grow and cheap and you can store them for a long time so I always tell people to to grow onions and you can use the the tops as green onions um so you can you can Harvest them at any point

Along the way even before they get big and they’re just fun to grow and that like no pests get on them ever um so it’s a good good I think they’re one of like they’re like carrots you know it’s so satisfying to grow it and a lot of

People forget how easy it is to grow carrots and onions like everyone needs that even a backyard Gardener you need carrots and you need onions it’s so satisfying to like rip it out and just look at it or eat it whatever M oh my gosh carrots are awesome like that I

Love carrots hate onions but I’ve tried I do I do grow onions from time to time but I’ve never had any success growing carrots so Stephanie give us some give us some carrot growing tips dery got some carrot grow is that the ger that’s the germination you’re having issues

With I’m assuming the the weeds are growing faster than the carrots so like like in commercial places they’ll go through and Flame weed the weeds to allow the carrots to actually pop up right that’s how they usually tar tarp it before you like in the summer or well you need to plan it

Before that but you could tarp it or get a little torch out and Flame weed it like you know I’m not opposed to that I I I like I like fire yeah we don’t flame weed or weed we don’t have that issue but um I mean in the spring yes but for

Like the carrots were’re harvested now that we planted back in August and September like it’s pretty easy to keep those Weed Free when you B it up so that’s my trick and tip for anyone is it’s almost like growing potatoes so you know how you heal potatoes you got that

Really like loose good soil and you heal it up and then those carrots it’s just easy for them to grow they can’t grow in compact soil I mean think about it you can’t grow like that so I always tell everyone to kind of heal them up and and

Grow that way and that means it’s easier to weed too can just reach down there and move them out of the way will it affect the shape of the carrot because yeah yeah if the soils compacted yeah you’ll get little stubbies or you’ll get little legs that are crossed that’s what

I was wondering because that’s what uh Zach was talking about he was like you know well- draining soil makes the carrots he goes leave them in there longer you know I guess some of them have like a terminal length they’re not going to grow any longer whatever but

You saying well draining Soul so I was wondering if you were to heal it would it start growing like fat on the top so that that makes sense you know kind of that makes a lot of sense I might we try to pack the we try

To pack as many which we grow Standard Market Garden 30-inch beds we try to put as many rows as possible in it and then that way the carrots just out compete new weeds that’s helped us at least on that front but yeah that’s an awesome that’s how mine’s kind of worked

I smush them all together I was like you know what let’s just grow them tight and I haven’t had that bad of weed issues maybe it’s just over the winter too but well maybe I need to plant some carrots maybe I’ve seen I’ve seen people kind of

Get crazy with it where they put carrot seeds and seed starting trays and they transplant carrot seed starts have y’all ever SE that sounds like that sounds crazy that I don’t think anybody really does that do they people do some crazy stuff I mean we sell we sell corn plants sometimes

With why would you do that but like people ask for them and they want us to bring in like Flats of corn plants and 4inch pots and I’m like you know you can just plant your own corn and it’s like super easy but they don’t want stick the seed in the ground yeah

Corn is like one of the easiest things to we have to like but we have to take it with the graya because we’re all really like understanding like have green thumbs like I know some people that cannot grow anything and then you have to like literally like tea it up

For them so it put it in the ground for them and let it grow or even go over their house every few weeks and water for them to make sure it stays alive so they they were selling they were selling corn in three gallon pots at Fred Reus

Place I was at for their Fall Fest because people were buying it as ornamental stuff for like start to see it in the spring they get really tall turn brown and their ornamental for like someone’s front porch is actually alive yeah so I could see that see we lost Stephanie oh

No she got she got kicked off internet yeah yeah it’s all it’s it’s all good I think we’re gonna we’re goingon to cut it um guys so so right now you was uh Michael you’re saying plant onions if you like onions plant onions right now

Yeah for us the order is going to be well you got all your leafy greens you can do the kale and all that um just protect them against the coldest Frost um but then once we’re getting into spring we do onions first and then potatoes are coming along in February

For us uh you’re planting potatoes and then you’re getting into all your spring stuff after that but the the onions are are the first of the year for people and people forget about them and then they get into March and April and they’re like oh I want to plant some onions but

It’s too late then uh they’re not going to they’re not gonna grow well for you so do your onions now soon no I I I’ve I’ve tried to grow garlic as well and garlic it just takes so long garlic just takes so long and I don’t have that much

Space so I just choose to buy my garlic I just it’s I don’t if I had more space I would let a whole bed just be taken up but I don’t have that space and garlic can take like six months to like grow actual big bulb you know so just stick

Them in your flower in the front of your house along with your own I got I got an HOA dog I’m gonna get a fine I’m catch a fine up in here bro you got you got three other find with you right here on that note everybody I appreciate

Yall coming on uh dirt let everybody know where they can find you and uh let us know what you got coming up you got any events or anything no events but you can follow along at tner Farmstead so you have two channels right we’re on all

The major platforms uh we I don’t have two channels I have what just happened to me dude that freaks me what just happened what just happened oh my God that freaked me out dude we only have one channel we’re just you know Oh I thought you had two channels on Instagram Tanner Farmstead

And dirt Tanner no so I guess technically I’ve got a farm store that’s that’s just strictly our farm store that people follow locally gotcha okay I didn’t because all my Tanner Farm stuff is all educational stuff so I don’t want to be posting like hey I’ve got lettuce

In my farm store when all of our followers don’t live nearby so I created a separate Channel just for that got yeah Goa well cool I I tagged everybody I hope I tagged you right on Facebook oh I think you did yeah perfect oh thanks for coming on D I appreciate

It man thank you all I learned something new today it was fun D I always learn I learned some cool stuff and now learn some dumb stuff and usually the dumb stuff is the stuff I say and Michael corrects me uh Michael go ahead and tell where

Everybody they can find you I know youall got some spring events coming up y’all got like an iary this year right at the nursery yeah this is our 75th anniversary of the garden center and uh we’re going to be putting a lot of classes on seminars workshops um so

That’ll be posted on our Smith Garden Town Facebook page and other other channels uh need to get you to come up and maybe do something with you uh so holler at me about that with what your schedule’s looking like for the spring because we’re going to be doing it big

This year and just trying to get lots of traffic into the store and lots of fun I’m heading to Florida in 10 days going to a tropical plant show in Fort Lauderdale tropical plant International Expo and uh that’s a huge huge uh convention that they have every year out

There for for the house plants and tropical are you gonna have a booth or are you gonna just be there just me going I’m there to buy oh yeah so taking the you’re taking theck or what no we just Place orders and they’ll ship them to us um I am taking

My wife with me so it’ll be like a little vacation little work vacation when it’s going to be freezing in in Texas it’ll be hopefully nice and warm in Florida I need to schedule one of those because it’s like oh I went on vacation but I did a bunch of gardening

Content so cha-ching ride off cha-ching ride off you know stuff like that um so I need to do some more that Ely want to try to go up to your y’all’s place and we’ll talk about that and then me and Phil are going to try to go to

Fig Fest in Sacramento this year with the Fig Hunter and we may try to do some other things as well yeah well we got invited to be like celebrity judges at like the Fig fest last year but he gave us like three days in advance like to

Come to Sacramento like dude come on just like so we love figs but that’s be really cool that sounds awesome oh yeah well there’s kind like we want to actually go fig hunting we want to drive around find figs growing wild in like California and we’ll be out there with

Sa cut pieces off take home with us you know gotta grab some Capper figs sound sounds illegal but I like it hey hey hey hey Define well it’s California everything’s we’ll bring phyto sanitary certificates and maybe it’ll be better that way yeah I’m gonna let Phil do the

Talking apparently because I don’t know what the hell he was talking he just said yeah what he said off officer um Phil let everybody know where they can find you and let us know uh about your website yeah um I have a big fig cutting sale going on right now on Phils

Figs.com you can find me on Phils at Phils figs on all the social media platforms except for maybe X and I think I have a few events coming up but they’re all here in the Wilmington area Wilmington North Carolina uh we got the popular Grove uh plant sale that’s in

April and the hobby Greenhouse Club of Wilmington we’re doing a greenhouse tour so if you ever want to come if you’re in North Carolina you want to see my setup I’ll be on that tour so and then of course fig sep I’m the president yeah which is pretty cool and it’s it’s a

Nice combo of people in the industry as well as just uh hobby Growers uh solely and so it’s been a great Network to join up with for sure yeah you need to get a hat it says make figs great again just cuz you’re the president figs are already great

Wonderful oh my goodness well Stephanie Stephanie lost signal but she is River V Growers on Instagram and she’s tagged in the live U so make sure to follow her um she’s got a bunch of events I’m sure but I don’t know um but I’m Dustin Noak the

Texas Garden guy and I appreciate y’all tuning in and hanging out with us tonight uh if y’all have any questions feel free to drop them down in the comment section after I post a live uh tag the guys in video go follow everybody and uh if you didn’t get to

Watch from the beginning you can start over and this will be on YouTube tomorrow so appreciate everybody coming on and uh talk to y’all later thank you thank you don’t